Salt marsh harvest mice (Reithrodontomys raviventris haliceotes) were discovered on the proposed Montezuma fossil fuel power plant site at Collinsville. California. Three trapping periods in summer and fall, 1978 revealed densities of 2.7 to 37.1 animals/hectare in marshes dominated by pickleweed (Salicornia viginica). The riparian placement of the power plant originally and informally proposed by the utility, Pacific Gas and Electric Company, would result in the destruction of 22.7 ha of wetlands including harvest mouse habitat. Mitigation studies indicate more marsh can be created and enhanced than will be destroyed although such mitigation is based on management for a single species. The questions of the mouse and wetland habitats are but two of a number of environmental issues associated with the plant, especially with a potential riparian placement. In November, 1978, governmental resource agencies went on record as favoring a non-riparian placement of the plant. Such is the situation at the beginning of the second phase of the Notice of Intention hearing on this plant site.
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